And in the meantime: “The disproportions were inherent…. Bungling organization saw to that before there was any ‘Engineers Center.’” (Charnovsky.)[237] “No wrecking activities were ever necessary…. All one had to do was carry out the appropriate actions and everything would happen on its own.” (Charnovsky again.)13 He could not have expressed himself more clearly. And he said this after many months in the Lubyanka and from the defendants’ bench in court. The appropriate actions—i.e., those imposed by bungling higher-ups—were quite enough: carry them out and the unthinkable plan would destroy itself. Here was their kind of wrecking: “We had the capability of producing, say, 1,000 tons and we were ordered [in other words, by a nonsensical plan] to produce 3,000, so we took no steps to produce them.”[238]…
You must admit that for an official, double-checked, spruced-up stenographic record in those years, this is not so little.
On many occasions Krylenko drives his actors to tones of exhaustion, thanks to the nonsense they are compelled to grind out over and over again… like a bad play in which the actor is ashamed for the dramatist, and yet has to go on and on anyway, to keep body and soul together.
Krylenko: “Do you agree?”
Fedotov: “I agree… even though in general I do not think…”[239]
Krylenko: “Do you confirm this?”
Fedotov: “Properly speaking… in certain portions… and so to speak, in general… yes.”16
For the engineers (those who were still free, not yet imprisoned, and who had to face the necessity of working cheerfully after the defamation at the trial of their whole class), there was no way out. They were damned if they did and damned if they didn’t. If they went forward, it was wrong, and if they went backward, it was wrong too. If they hurried, they were hurrying for the purpose of wrecking. If they moved methodically, it meant wrecking by slowing down tempos. If they were painstaking in developing some branch of industry, it was intentional delay, sabotage. And if they indulged in capricious leaps, their intention was to produce an imbalance for the purpose of wrecking. Using capital for repairs, improvements, or capital readiness was tying up capital funds. And if they allowed equipment to be used until it broke down, it was a diversionary action! (In addition, the interrogators would get all this information out of them by subjecting them to sleeplessness and punishment cells and then demanding that they give convincing examples of how they might have carried on wrecking activities.)
“Give us a clear example! Give us a clear example of your wrecking activity!” the impatient Krylenko urges them on.
(They will give you outstanding examples! Just wait! Soon someone will write the history of the technology of those years! He will give you examples—and negative examples. He will evaluate for you all the convulsions of your epileptic “Five-Year Plan in Four Years.” Then we will find out how much of the people’s wealth and strength was squandered. Then we will find out how all the best projects were destroyed, and how the worst projects were carried out by the worst means. Well, yes, if the Mao Tse-tung breed of Red Guard youths supervise brilliant engineers, what good can come of it? Dilettante enthusiasts—they were the ones who egged on their even stupider leaders.)
Yes, full details are a disservice. Somehow the more details provided, the less the evil deeds seem to smell of execution.
But just a moment! We’ve not had everything yet! The most important crimes all lie ahead! Here they are, here they come, comprehensible and intelligible to every illiterate! The Promparty (1) prepared the way for the Intervention; (2) took money from the imperialists; (3) conducted espionage; (4) assigned cabinet posts in a future government.
And that did it! All mouths were shut. And all those who had been expressing their reservations fell silent. And only the tramping of demonstrators could be heard, and the roars outside the window: “Death! Death! Deaths
What about some more details? Why should you want more details? Well, then, if that’s the way you want it; but they will only be more frightening. They were all acting under orders from the French General Staff. After all, France doesn’t have enough worries, or difficulties, or party conflicts of its own, and it is enough just to whistle, and, lo and behold, divisions will march…. Intervention! First they planned it for 1928. But they couldn’t come to an agreement, they couldn’t tie up all the loose ends. All right, so they postponed it to 1930. But once more they couldn’t agree among themselves. All right, 1931 then. And, as a matter of fact, here’s how it was to go: France herself would not fight but, as her commission for organizing the deal, would take the Ukraine right bank as her share. England wouldn’t fight either, of course, but, in order to raise a scare, promised to send her fleet into the Black Sea and into the Baltic—in return, she would get Caucasian oil. The actual warriors would, for the most part, be the following: 100,000 émigrés (true, they had long since scattered to the four winds, but it would take only a whistle to gather them all together again immediately); Poland—for which she would get half the Ukraine; Rumania (whose brilliant successes in World War I were famous—she was a formidable enemy). And then there were Latvia and Estonia. (These two small countries would willingly drop all the concerns of their young governments and rush forth en masse to do battle.) And the most frightening thing of all was the direction of the main blow. How’s that? Was it already known? Yes! It would begin from Bessarabia, and from there, keeping to the right bank of the Dnieper, it would move straight on Moscow.[240] And at that fateful moment, would not all our railroads certainly be blown up? No, not at all. Bottlenecks would be created! And the Promparty would also yank out the fuses in electric power stations, and the entire Soviet Union would be plunged into darkness, and all our machinery would come to a halt, including the textile machinery! And sabotage would be carried out. (Attention, defendants! You must not name your methods of sabotage, nor the factories which were your objectives, nor the geographic sites involved, until the closed session. And you must not name names, whether foreign or our own!) Combine all this with the fatal blow which will have been dealt the textile industry by that time! Add the fact that the saboteurs will have constructed two or three textile factories in Byelorussia which will serve as a base of operations for the interventionists.18 With the textile factories already in their hands, the interventionists would march implacably on Moscow. But here was the cleverest part of the whole plot: though they didn’t succeed in doing so, they had wanted to drain the Kuban marshes and the Polesye swamps, and the swamp near Lake Ilmen (Vyshinsky had forbidden them to name the exact places, but one of the witnesses blurted them out), and then the interventionists would open up the shortest routes and would get to Moscow without wetting their feet or their horses’ hoofs. (And why was it so hard for the Tatars? Why was it that Napoleon didn’t reach Moscow? Yes! It was because of the Polesye and the Ilmen swamps. And once those swamps were drained, the capital would lie exposed.) On top of that, don’t forget to add that hangars had been built there under the guise of sawmills (places not to be named!) so that the planes of the interventionists would not get wet in the rain and could be taxied into them. And housing for the interventionists had also been built (do not name the places!). (And where had all the homeless occupation armies been quartered in previous wars?) The defendants had received all the directives on these matters from the mysterious foreign gentlemen K. and R. (It is strictly forbidden to name their names—or to name the countries they come from!)19 And most recently they had even begun “the preparation of treasonable actions by individual units of the Red Army.” (Do not name the branches of the service, nor the units, nor the names of any persons involved!) True, they hadn’t done any of this; but they had also intended (though they hadn’t done that either) to organize within some central army institution a cell of financiers and former officers of the White armies. (Ah, the White Army? Write it down! Start making arrests!) And cells of anti-Soviet students. (Students? Write it down! Start making arrests!)
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17. Who drew that arrow for Krylenko on a cigarette pack—was it not drawn by the same hand that thought up our entire defense strategy in 1941?